Director of Engineering

About DemandBridge 

DemandBridge builds the ERP and e-commerce software that print, promotional products, and marketing-services distributors run their businesses on, from order entry and inventory to procurement and online storefronts. Hundreds of distributors across North America rely on our platform to serve their clients faster, keep costs under control, and grow. 

DemandBridge is part of Fluent Software Group (a Valsoft Corporation operating group), a global acquirer and operator of vertical market software businesses. We focus on specialized industries where expertise creates lasting advantages. 

The Opportunity

We're looking for a hands-on engineering leader to take our team through its most important chapter in years: building our next-generation ERP. This is a player-coach role — you'll manage and develop the team, raise the bar on how we build and ship software, and still get into the code and architecture yourself. You'll work hand-in-hand with a newly strengthened Product team to turn the roadmap into reliable, predictable delivery. 

Location: Canada or US (remote) 

The salary range for this role is $170,000 CAD– $200,000 CAD per year. Final compensation will be determined based on experience, skills, and location. 

What You'll Own 

Lead and Grow the Team 

• Manage, coach, and develop engineers through regular 1:1s, clear expectations, and consistent feedback 

• Assess the current team's strengths and gaps, and make recommendations on hiring, development, and structure 

• Hire and onboard engineers, and build a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement 

Build the Next-Generation ERP 

• Set technical direction and lead architecture decisions for the new ERP, including finalizing the technology stack (Java-based direction) 

• Stay hands-on: code reviews, design, prototyping, and contributing directly to critical components 

• Balance modernization with supporting existing product lines and current customers, and manage technical debt proactively 

Raise the Bar on Engineering Practices and Delivery 

• Own the software development lifecycle: a shared sprint cadence, daily standups, retrospectives, and release schedules across all teams 

• Shorten and stabilize release cycles by strengthening automated testing, CI/CD, and Engineering's ownership of release quality 

• Set clear standards for code review, testing, and observability 

• Drive team adoption of AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or equivalent) 

Partner with Product 

• Engage early in epic kickoffs and discovery to provide sizing estimates and technical feasibility input 

• Own engineering capacity planning by quarter and sprint so roadmap commitments are realistic — and met 

• Communicate trade-offs, risks, and progress clearly to Product, Support, and leadership 

Own Infrastructure, Reliability, and Compliance 

• Oversee IT/Infrastructure and Site Reliability Engineering alongside the software engineering team 

• Own production incidents and the on-call model, and act as the escalation point for outages and critical issues 

• Own the PCI compliance process end to end, from controls and audits through remediation 

• Own Azure cost optimization: track spend, right-size environments, and hold the team accountable for cloud costs 

• Keep the legacy platform (Linux, Perl, Spring Boot, Oracle, SQL) stable and secure while the next-generation ERP is built 

What We're Looking For 

• 8+ years in software development, including 3+ years managing engineering teams 

• Strong hands-on Java experience (back-end, enterprise applications) and genuine comfort still working in the code 

• Experience building or modernizing an ERP or complex transactional B2B systems (order management, inventory, accounting) 

• A track record of implementing agile practices, CI/CD, and test automation that made releases faster and more reliable 

• Strong relational database design and performance optimization skills 

• The ability to assess talent, give direct feedback, and make tough people decisions 

• Hands-on experience with Azure (AWS or GCP also considered), including managing and optimizing cloud spend 

• Experience building or leading a QA function and a test automation strategy 

• Experience owning production operations: on-call rotations, incident management, and Site Reliability Engineering practices 

• Experience with PCI DSS compliance, or a comparable security and compliance framework, in a production environment 

• Comfort supporting and modernizing legacy systems, including Linux, Perl, Spring Boot, Oracle, and SQL 

• Active, hands-on use of AI-assisted development tools 

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate technical issues into business impact 

Strongly Preferred 

• Experience in distribution or supply chain software, or in the print and promotional products industry 

• Experience in an acquisitive, growth-stage vertical software business 

• Experience managing teams distributed across Canada and the U.S. 

Join Us 

Your next big build starts here. Join us to lead the team behind DemandBridge’s next-generation ERP. 

We use AI-powered tools (including transcription and automated note-taking) during portions of our interview process to support a consistent and thorough candidate experience. Candidates who require alternative accommodation may request it at any stage of the recruitment process. 

Fluent Software Group is committed to building diverse, equitable, and inclusive teams. We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences, and all qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, gender, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic. 

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